England And Poland Win Tuneups While Italy Loses Again

byDavidonJune 3, 2012

England won for the second straight time under Roy Hodgson on Saturday, while European Championship co-host Poland and the Netherlands both enjoyed easy victories. The same could not be said for Italy, who lost for the third consecutive game as the Italian match fixing scandal continues to engulf the team’s Euro preparations.

At Wembley, Danny Welbeck scored his first international goal in the 36th minute to give England a 1-0 victory over Belgium. The win, and clean sheet gives England a perfect record since Roy Hodgson became coach, but the win was costly as Chelsea defender Gary Cahill broke his jaw in two places and will miss the Euros.

Poland swept aside lowly Andorra 4-0 in Warsaw after three first-half goals in its last pre-Euro exhibition. Denmark beat Australia 2-0 at home.

Croatia, however, settled for a 1-1 draw at Norway after Tarik Elyounoussi evened the score in injury time for the hosts. Eduardo da Silva gave Croatia the lead in the 79th minute.

Russia piled on the misery for embattled Italy with a 3-0 victory on Friday night.

Alexander Kerzhakov put the Russians in front on the hour mark, having been denied by the post in the first half. Roman Shirokov made it 2-0 with 15 minutes remaining and added his second late in the game to give Russia the win.

Italy, who had gone through the qualifying campaign unbeaten and had been one of the teams thought to have a chance of beating Spain have now lost their last three straight friendlies.

Another side limping into the Euros is Portugal who lost 3-1 at home to Turkey. Portugal missed several chances, including a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty, and were whistled off the pitch for the second time in a week by its home fans.